For Ladies Only: 12 Ways To Know If He's The Right Guy

LaDieS, dont be fooled by looks, lips and paycheques;
not all that glitters is gold.
Let me share with you some godly proven principles
that would guide you in finding the guy that fits.
I call them "Red and Green Lights On the Road to Alter"

1. Check your own health and readiness before you check the guy out.

You need to deal with any baggage from the past before entering a new relationship.
Many people transpose old feelings and hurts on new relationships and ruin great potentials by so doing. Wait until you are healed from past painful experiences or beautiful memories of old soul ties.
Nobodies like to be squeezed into the mold of another person, good or bad.

Checking your own health and readiness also means
ensuring you are in the will of God in your personal life
before seeking the will of God in your marital life.
A marriage does not make people it is the people that make a marriage.
Measure your readiness by how well you have surrendered your will to God.
It is difficult to know what God wants for you when you already know
what you want for yourself.
Ask yourself "if God tells me
to walk away from this relationship today,
how willing am I to obey?"
Presence of pain from the past and
unwillingness to surrender to God is red light.
Selflessness and freedom from the past is green light

2. Ask your guy, why he thinks you are special or different from other girls

I am sure you want to hear better answers than "you take my breath away",
“being with you is like being in heaven” or "I don’t know but i just love you".
If he cannot tell you in concrete terms why you stand out from other girls
he may not know why he will leave you for another girl.
Look for answers that tell you how he thinks you have what it takes
to help him accomplish his life mission
as well as how he plans to add value to you in the process

3. Ask him where he sees himself in the next five years or foreseeable future

No one knows tomorrow but a man old enough to marry
must have a clear direction for his life or he is not qualified
to take another person with him.
If he cannot show you a clear picture of his future,
he probably has no idea where he is heading. Red light, don't proceed.
A guy who knows where he is coming from and where he is going is the right guy

4. Watch how he treats his mom and siblings

Charity they say begins at home. What a person is at home is what he really is.
If he treats his folks disrespectfully because he wants to be with you or please you, it is only a matter of time before he starts treating you disrespectfully when you become a member of his immediate family
Treats folks respectfully? Green light! Treats folks disrespectfully? Red light!

5. Watch how he walks

Some may not think walking habit has anything to say about a relationship but it does. Walking ahead of you and not looking back to see how you are doing is indication he may not care much about your well being. Walking behind you is usually a good sign of protection and care especially when boarding a bus or in a rowdy mall. Walking side by side is expression of friendship and support.
Unless where making a pathway demands it, walking ahead of you is red light.
Walking beside you or behind you is green light for the most past

6. Look out for signs of unrest within you

When present, feelings of urgency or unrest usually indicate danger. Be very careful and do not proceed Generally, God leads his people by peace – the kind of peace that surpasses all human reasoning.
That means your guy may not be very good looking or have a lot of money
but you will not be afraid of your financial future.
He may be very handsome and rich
but you will not be afraid he will dump you or take advantage of you.
Never proceed when you feel uneasy about him or his ways.
It could be God’s way of saving you from trouble.
Unrest is red light. Peace is green light

7. Watch his giving habit.

Miserly people are hardly transformed and transformed people are hardly miserly.
You need a transformed guy. He carries within him the giving nature of God by default.
Please understand that being miserly is different from being prudent, which is a good management quality.
Prudent people may be strict but never stingy in the negative sense.
A giving habit is green light. Withholding habit is red light

8. Does he ask your opinion before making major decisions?

You will know how well he respects you when it's time to make major decisions.
Guys who think your brain worth less than a dime won’t bother asking you what you think about an issue.
In many cases such guys won’t also think twice before dumping you
along the way the moment they find a smarter person.
Two heads are better than one. If his head is good enough, you are not needed
Couples that plan together stay together

9. Ask him what you can do for him, anything!

If he asks for sex, it means a few things: he loves your body not you, he wants fun not a future, he has little self control, he is self centered and has little respect for you or your feelings. That’s red light, don't proceed.
If he asks your help in becoming a better person for the dream family
or some long term goals that includes you, that’s green light.

10. Ask him to share his biggest mistake with 
woman, power, money, and God and the lessons he learned.

Agreed, this is not a question you want to ask on a first date
 but do not proceed to the alter without it.
The right guy is the guy who has learned and
applied lessons in these four major areas.
If he is protective, he has not learned.
People are generally free to share a past they have conquered.
You would want to know what he learned from his ex
and what he would do better now.
Look for examples where he applied lessons learned.
Don't marry a toddler-guy without any life lessons.
he will treat you like a toy and throw you in the trash when he is done.
Toddler-guys ruin relationships.

11. Analyze your chemistry of attraction.

Are you attracted by love or by lust?
Love sustains but lust fades.
Love gives, lust takes.
Love waits, lust wants it now.
Bad chemistry is body exploration for sensual gratification:
red light, don't proceed.
Good chemistry is compatibility in atmosphere of respect and selflessness:
green light, proceed with caution

12. Pray and trust God to lead you in the right path

There is no magic way to find the right guy.
There is a way that seem right to a person but the end leads death.
Human beings judge by appearance but God judge by the heart.
Make the Lord your shepherd, he knows where the right guy is and he will lead you.
Commit your ways to the lord, trust also in him and he will direct your path. Unless the Lord guides you all your efforts may end in vain or at best lead you to the fake guy.
Pray and proceed in faith.

You will succeed!

@Solidrock
We seek and follow divine directions!

Do This, Whenever You Feel Discouraged!

aRe yoU losing sleep over expectations not met?

Tired of the results in your life, church, community and nation?

Overwhelmed by the loss in your business, career, marriage, health or finances?

Frustrated at work by what you do, what you earn and who you work with?

Losing hope of catching up with those gone ahead of you?

You are neither alone nor unreasonable!

Many people are not very satisfied by with their progress reports. It could be the level of progress in their careers, finances, business, parenting, physical fitness, finding a suitable marriage partner or raising a family. Whatever it is, we just want to conquer more teritories and advance. The situation gets really frustrating when we compare ourselves to people we started with or even worse, people who started after us but have gone ahead. This makes us sink low and sigh: “I deserve more than this” Quite frankly, you may have good reasons to feel the way you do. No one likes to be behind; I don’t.

But here is what we do not often give a serious thought:

Our source of frustration or lack of satisfaction is not necessarily the situation we are in but the comparisons of our situation and the situations of our friends, neighbours, or co-workers.

Three examples from Scriptures prove this standpoint:

a. Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:3-6)

These two brothers brought offering to God. God accepted Abel’s but did not accept Cain’s because of Cain;s attitude. Cain got upset and murdered his brother, Abel. Do you think Cain was necessarily unhappy because he got poor results or because Abel got better results than he did? Think about it, if both Cain and Abel had had the same poor results would Cain have been frustrated? I don’t think so; not as much as killing his brother. Cain’s real source of frustration then was not the situation itself but the comparison of his situation and that of his brother’s

b. Two Nursing Mothers and King Solomon (1Kings 3:16-27)

Two nursing mothers had a dispute over a dead child and came to King Solomon for resolution. One woman argued that her son was alive and that her rival’s son was dead. The other woman insisted that the dead son was her rivals and hers was alive. Then Solomon said ‘let’s divide the living son into two and give half to each of you”. The woman whose son was dead quickly agreed, “yes, neither you nor I will have him. Cut him in two” (1Kings 3:26). This statement revealed that the woman whose son was dead was not just frustrated because her son died but because her mate’s son was alive whereas her was dead. With this attitude, of course, it was easy for the King to know the true mother. People are not frustrated about their failures but about the successes of other people.

c. The Vineyard Workers (Matt 20:1-16)

Two sets of workers: those who worked twelve hours and those who worked 1 hour. The interesting thing is that the vineyard owner decided to pay everyone the same wages. The first set got upset about this equality because they expected to receive more. But just what was their expectation based on? Certainly not on the contract for they had agreed to accept a denarius a day. The landowner had to ask them: did you not agree to receive a denarius a day or are you envious because I am generous? Take what is your and go away. Had the first set of workers not seen what the second group earned, they would have gone home happy with what they had.

From these three examples, we may conclude that our real source of frustration or lack of satisfaction is not the situation itself but the comparisons of our situations and the situations of other people.

Start your journey from discouragement to fufilment today by counting your own blessings; not the blessings of other people!

Truth is, inequality is a fact of life. There will always be the rich and the poor. You will get ahead of some, some will get ahead of you. But who says those who have gone ahead of you today will forever be ahead? God can thrust further in your career, marriage, business and life in one hour than others have accomplished in eleven years!

Don’t freak yourself out because God has been generous to others. Count your own blessings. God’s generosity to others does not in any way reduce God’s generosity to you. Besides, have you realized that some of your blessings are prayer points for some other people? All you have now is all you need now. Where you are now is where you ought to be now. The cure for envy, strife, fights and breakups is counting our own blessings. Unrealistic expectation leads to frustration and frustrations eat up the bones. That’s not God’s will for us.

I love the lyrics:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed.

When you are discouraged thinking all the time.

Count your many blessings name them one by one

And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Does counting our own blessings mean we should not aim high or be satisfied with status quo? Not at all!  We need a measure of discontentment to make progress in life. We must constantly shoot for greater heights. Counting your own blessings means, we must not continue to live in discouragement because of what others have which we do not have. We must not allow our desires, hopes, dreams of tomorrow rob us of the beauty of today and the fulfilment that comes from little achievements. You certainly are not where you used to be. Like Joyce Meyer puts it, keep enjoying everyday life on your way to where you are going.

You will succeed!

@Solidrock

 We Enjoy the moment. Come!

Get A bigGER Frying Pan...!

Two men went fishing. One man was an experienced fisherman, the other wasn't. Every time the experienced fisherman caught a big fish, he put it in his ice chest to keep it fresh. Whenever the inexperienced fisherman caught a big fish, he threw it back. The experienced fisherman watched this go on all day and finally got tired of seeing this man waste good fish. "Why do you keep throwing back all the big fish you catch?" he asked. The inexperienced fisherman replied, "I only have a small frying pan." Well, why not get a bigger frying pan rather than a getting the smaller fishes? asked the experienced fisherman.

Are you like the inexperienced fisherman? Are you throwing back your big dreams? Are you resizing your big plans? Are you waving off the big opportunities and resources that God is bringing your way?

Friend, you don’t have to downsize to fit your current state instead upsize and break the walls of limitations. The question is not can God provide it? The question is, can you handle it? If you don’t have it yet, it may not be that God has not brought it your way, it may just be that your capacity to receive is yet too small. We are where we are with what we have because of our current thinking capacity. There are still many big opportunities around us today just as there are many big fishes in the river. Why settle for less when we can have more?

Yes, nothing is impossible unless that which we think is! When a problem or an idea seems too big to handle, do not attempt to make them smaller. Simply enlarge your capacity to handle the problems and opportunities.

Therefore, I encourage you to watch that idea or challenge God is bringging to your way. Rather than ask “can I”? ask “why can’t I”? Remember, you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength.


Prayer
Lord, enlarge my capacity to receive and manage all that you bring my way in Jesus name! (1Chronicles 4:10)

@ Solidrock,
We Think Possibilities!!!

...........Be a Susie to Someone

It was a Monday morning in a third grade classroom. A little boy, about nine years old, was sitting at his desk. Then all of a sudden, there was a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants was wet. It has never happened before and he was sorely embarrassed. How could he face his classmates? He knew that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again for the rest of his life. He felt like his heart was going to stop. Ashamed and helpless, the boy put his head down and prayed this prayer, "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat." He looked up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. As the teacher was walking toward him, a classmate by the name Susie was carrying a bowl of water. Susie tripped in front of the teacher and dumps the bowl of water on the boy's lap. The boy pretended to be angry, but within him he was saying, "Thank you Lord! Thank you Lord!"

Almost at once, the whole class got to their feet. The teacher rushed him downstairs and gave him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children were on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The love was wonderful. All of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy became the object of sympathy, love and care. Finally, at the end of the day, as the children were waiting for the bus, the boy walked over to Susie and whispered,” You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Susie whispered back, "I wet my pants once too"

Just like that little boy, someone near you is craving for emergency help but has no idea how or where that help would come from.  Would you be a Susie to that person? He or she is putting his or her head down in despair and waiting for God to show up. Yes, God reaches people through people just like you and me. You wouldn't look away and let someone whom Christ died for die in shame, would you?

This article may just be God's dispacth order to you, his beloved redemption worker. Like little Susie, Jesus is expecting you to reach out to someone who is ashamed, hurting and helpless. Yes, that person may be responsible for his or her pain but we are to reach out without asking questions. We who have been saved must not forget where God brought us from. And yes, you don't have to wait for others to reach out. Little Susies don't. You may be the only Susie in your area. "The harvest is plenty but the labourers are few" Look out, a messed soul may just be sitting around you. Each of us has what it takes -a bowl of God's love. Reach out! Remember, we are redeemed to redeem the world!

Think About This
“Those who help others up move up with them. Those who push others down stay there with them”

Little Things That Ruin Great Relationships

Many relationships start out superbly and then detour along the way. Some survive and thrive but a great number of relationships struggle for years and some never make it.

Why do great relationships rotten? Why do once upon a time best friends turn worst enemies? Why do sweet dreams turn nightmares and love birds turn cat and dog?


I don’t have all the answers but I’ve had the privilege of counselling with couples and learning from them. I have also learned from my personal mistakes and victories. My conclusion is: the problem with our relationships is not often the ‘big stuff’ but the ‘little things’ we ignore.

Here is my big list of 'little things' that ruin great relationships.

1. Pretending not to know what you did hurts

2. Undervaluing his or her efforts at building your relationship

3. Arguing about the obvious or seemingly insignificant matters

4. Feeling superior or inferior to the other person

5. Failing to apologize when you are wrong

6. Putting her or him down in public

7. Failing to honour/recognize him or her in public

8. Failing to acknowledge his or her creativity and strength

9. Comparing him or her to your mom, siblings, friends or others

10. Saying ‘yes’ when you mean ‘no’ or ‘no’ when you mean ‘yes’

11. Keeping secretes on important matters and not keeping your promises

12. Lying to him or her, even if for good reasons

13. Taking him or her for granted but respecting strangers

14. Straying eyes and thoughts especially when together on dates or other socials

15. Lack of heart-felt "thank you", "sorry", "please", and other kind words when due

16. Failing to notice and attend to body language e.g. frown, stress, displeasure or weakness

17. Failing to create memorable events or make memorable events memorable

18. Being insensitive to her or his unspoken emotional needs and failing to ask

19. Not looking in the eye and/or touching him or her when talking or being together

20. Refusing to go the extra mile or give a hand when he or she needs it even though you could

21. Forgetting important dates but not forgeting unimportant offences

22. Playing blame game

23. Being sarcastic

24. Failing to completely forgive
25. Focusing on personal goals rather than corporate good

26. Sweeping unresolved small matters under the carpet

27. Failing to pray together and check the spiritual health of each other

Generally, doing the flip side of these little things can greatly enhance your relationship. Unfortunately, not many of us are disciplined enough to do them. Whenever we ignore the little things, they grow into big problems that even the best psychologists can’t manage. Time is of essence.


"Sometimes, when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things ... I am tempted to think there are no little things." Bruce Barton.

It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. (Gal 5:9 -Message)


If you want to know if your relationship is dysfunctional, I recommend doing a quick relationship health-check, it's easy! The presence of one or more of the following dysfunctions in your relationship means you or your partner –in most cases, both of you- may have been ignoring the little things that may break your relationship.


Here are 10 common dysfunctions of unhealthy relationships.

1. Lack of trust
You just don’t trust each other. You suspect there is more to what you are seeing, hearing or know. You question his or her motives for doing what he or she does. You take matters personally and are afraid to reveal your weakness. You fear being taken advantage of and are self protective. There is a lot of suspicion or over-questioning actions, motives and issues. As valid as our excuse for living this kind of lifestyle may be, absence of trust is a relationship dysfunction and need to be corrected if you want to enjoy a fabulous togetherness.

2. Lack of mutual respect
You really don’t think he or she forms a significant part of your life although you may not directly tell him or her so. You treat strangers to a luxury and him or her to a common. You disregard her or him

3. Passive aggression
You indirectly express your anger and frustration through sarcasm, jesting, body language in an effort to retaliate unfair treatment. You are silently resistant and aggressive. You are an invisible oppressor
You make him or her look stupid by laughing at their mistakes or asking certain questions. You hate him or her but make him or her think you love them in a way that contradicts your assertions

4. Lack of commitment or demanding unfair amount of freedom
You don’t want to be held responsible for getting things done. You trade blames for setbacks and claim ownerships of successes. You want to do ‘your thing' rather than ‘our thing'. You have I-am-not-my-brother-keeper kind of attitude

5. You prefer secrecy or ambiguous privacy
You protect your space and activities on phone, facebook, name it

6. Refusing accountability
He or she puts up “what-I-do-is-none-of-your-business” kind of attitude. You refuse to give feedback

7. Ignoring each other.
You pretend not to know he or she hurts. You manoeuvre, manipulate and second guess

8. Insensitivity or hard heartedness

9. Stale psychological air
You lack freedom to openly express your feelings and frustrations. You want the next available exit as soon as possible

10. Withdrawals or mental separation
Retiring to your own world emotionally even though you might be together


PS:
The second part of my observation is that many more people seem to be more prepared to confront the “big” stuff in relationships such as:

• Sex- too early, too much, too little or good sex
• Money- lack, surplus or just enough
• Power- control, ownership, authority, identity
• Third parties- his girl friend(s) and her boyfriend(s) or in-laws
• God, Faith, church, family- varying levels of commitment

I will leave this for a separate discussion. If you have comment or questions, please contact me at thesolidrockpastor@gmail.com. Thank you for visiting!

@ Solidrock
  We pay attention to everyone.Come

Do What You HAve To Do To Move Forward

When I consider the consequences of decisions I am afraid to say I do but when I consider the consequences of indecisions I do what I have to do, now.

Have you realized that everything in life is at a standstill or uniform state unless some force acts on it? Newton’s first law of motion supports this universal principle. Nothing moves until you move. If you are lying down you will remain where you lie for the rest of your life unless you get up or something else makes you get up. If you are driving a car you will continue to drive that car the rest of your life unless you apply your brakes or something else compels you to stop. If you are eating you will keep eating forever unless you choose to stop eating or something else forces you to stop.

The same is true for failure and success in life. If you are failing you will keep failing unless something happens to stop that failure circle. If you are sick you will remain sick unless something happens to stop that sickness. If you are unemployed you will remain unemployed unless something happens to stop that unemployment. The question is what is that something that will change your current situation? The answer is YOUR CHOICES OR LIFE's CHANCES.

Seriously, would you rather wait for some chance to compel you or would you make the choice to do what you have to do to move forward? If we leave our change of situation to chance, we may not like the outcome; but if we make informed choices we live in freedom. Yes, we may not have hundred percent controls over the outcomes but doing nothing leaves the hundred percent to chance of failure.

Are you sick, failing, unemployed, tired, depressed, unhappy, rejected, broke, in debt? Do not wait for chance occurrences. Nothing will change unless you change. The good news is you can. But how do you know what to do and have the courage to do it in order to experience the change you desire? The following are a few of the lessons I have learned from the bible and life:

1. Become dissatisfied with the status quo. As long as you like it the way it is, it will stay the way it is. The energy you need to change the way it is comes from an intense dislike for the way it is.

2. Look over there from here. You are likely to remain the way you are right now unless you see the difference between the way you are and the way you could be. It is the awareness of the gap between the way things are and the way things could be that fuels the passion to arise and do something about the situation. Can you mentally picture your destination from your current location?

3. Don’t go solo. It is not good for a person to be alone because when he falls he has no one to life him up. Two are better than one for the have a reward for their labour. Three is even better; a threefold cord in not easily broken. Make friends with people who can help you but don’t leave God out of the fold. Sometimes the most important word of encouragement you need to move past that obstacle will come from a friend.

4. Reward yourself after little successes. It’s easy to think you have made no progress unless you look back to see where you are coming from. You may not have arrived but you are not where you used to be. Even if you are flying you can only be at one location per time.

5. Never compare yourself to others. Comparing ourselves to others kill our enthusiasm. But why get involved in such irrational calculus? We were not all born the same day and we would not all die the same day. We were not all given the same assignment and we would not all give the same account. If your destination is Sidney Autralia, you won’t board a plane going Paris just because the aircraft looks great and some friends you made at the airport are boarding that plane. Everyone is on a separate mission in life and our success is measured by the completion of our specific assignment.

6. Don’t forget; a bend is not an end. The road to success is uphill and meandering. Don’t return downhill when you see the bends and the rises. Stay on course, your destination may just be around the corner. It’s okay to have momentary setbacks but if you give up you won’t go up. Keep moving, you will get there!

Man does not drift into goodness...the chance port of an aimless voyage. He must ever fight for his own destination.... William Jordan

Lazy people don’t even cook the game they catch, but the diligent make use of everything they find. ...Proverbs 12:27

@ Solidrock
We keep moving. We dont stop!